


I gave you a gift

by Elfarock



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Follows Season 3, Happy Ending, M/M, POV Will Graham, Straddling the line between canon-compliant drama and extra extra gay drama, canon-typical discussions of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfarock/pseuds/Elfarock
Summary: Will knew exactly where to find Hannibal. The labyrinth of the catacombs, laying under the tiles of church. Under where the offering of a bloody heart had been left.--All along season 3, Will comes to term with what he knows and what he wants from Hannibal Lecter.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	I gave you a gift

**Author's Note:**

> Most of the dialogue is lifted from the show, I don't claim any ownership over it. Will' thoughts and his torturing himself over everything are indeed my own additions ^^"
> 
> This is my first time writing for this fandom ! It's quite complicated to be adequately dramatic but not too much.

Will knew exactly where to find Hannibal. The labyrinth of the catacombs, laying under the tiles of church. Under where the offering of a bloody heart had been left.

He knew he was followed by the Italian inspector, Pazzi, but the man was irrelevant. Either he would stay and die, or listen to reason and leave. Either way, Will would find Hannibal, and he could finally say all the things he’d been sitting on for months. 

He hadn’t prepared a speech. Didn’t know what would come out of his mouth when he eventually opened it in the silence of the crypt.He’d never had to prepare for Hannibal. Even when he was fooling him, luring him, he’d only had the broadest guidelines to lead him. Interaction came naturally, as it didn’t with most other people. Hannibal wasn’t most other people. Today again, the maelström of his thoughts would coalesce and give way to the eye of the storm. Deceptively calm.

It was colder down here than it was in the chapel. Devoid of the human warmth of life, surrounded by age old corpses, crystallized in time, so others could come peruse at them. Fitting. 

“Hannibal !” Will called. 

He wanted to see the man, be face to face again. He searched the crypt, the shadows clinging to the walls. But the monster didn’t want to be seen. He was at home in the cold and dark, and he would stay there until Will offered something worthwhile to bring him back in the light of day. 

“Signor Graham.” Pazzi had followed, his gun out. He was there for the monster too, but all he offered was death and pain, and the monster wouldn’t show. Or he would show and he would only offer the same in return. Will had to make Pazzi leave, if he didn’t understand the danger. If he stayed in the way.

“You shouldn’t be down here alone.” He said. The threat was clear.

“I’m not alone, I’m with you.” No, no he wasn’t.

“You don’t know which side I’m on.” Will reminded him. 

“What are you going to do when you find him, your Il Mostro?”

“I’m curious about that myself.” 

Pain and death didn’t interest Will as much as understanding and communion. Their voices echoed in the expanse of the caves, soft as they were. Hannibal would hear every whisper. Would he stay, to find out himself? 

The inspector looked at him with a peculiar expression, reminding Will of pity. He didn’t deal well with pity. He didn’t need it. 

“You and I carry the dead with us, Signor Graham. We both need to unburden.” 

He didn’t understand. Will carried the dead in him and he couldn’t unburden. There was no escape from the knowledge of death. He knew it intimately, from the victims and their killers, from his victims and his kills. Abigail had followed him until the chapel. She would follow forever, in the dark recesses of his mind, as crystallized in death as the remains in the crypts. The image of Hannibal would haunt her memory, like it haunted all of his memories, those he’d made with or without him. 

His thoughts were tinted with his colors, an understated presence everywhere and a burst of sensations where he was most concentrated. Sound, vision, touch, smell, taste. Pleasure and pain. So much pain. He was overwhelming, even by his absence. 

“Why don’t you carry your dead back to the chapel, before you count yourself among them.” 

“You are already dead, aren’t you ?” The inspector fired back.

He had died months ago in Hannibal’s kitchen, trying to hold together the life of the daughter they’d gained and lost. He had been dead for a long time, but his body didn’t get the memo. He was still breathing, his heart still beating, his legs still carrying him. He was on probation. Only there because Hannibal had willed it. He’d wanted Will dead, but still walking. Here he was. 

“Buonanotte commendatore.”

He walked back in the shadows, part of the crypt, one of the corpses. He waited for the inspector to leave. 

Will walked back to the center of the caves, where all the arches branched out. He lifted his eyes up to the ceiling. This must be right under the tile, the one with the praying skeleton. Fitting.

“Hannibal”, he called again. He knew the other man was present, could feel his eyes on him. 

“I forgive you.” He breathed out. “And I offer you my final death.”

He was only here because Hannibal had willed it. He would only go when and how Hannibal willed it. This was a gift, to make up for his betrayal. They had both betrayed each other, and both gifted each other parts of themselves. Will’s gift was maybe too unspoken for Hannibal to have understood at the time. His devotion too obscured by the game of cat and mouse they’d been playing alongside their courting. Will just had to reiterate. Hannibal would understand.

The silence stretched out. He heard a breath on his left. He didn’t move. After a while, when he didn’t feel him, he knew Hannibal had gone. He went his way, and caught sight of a red stain on the ground. It looked out of place in the dark, too saturated in color in this bleak underworld. A red rose, fresh, a drop of blood on one of its thorns. 

The monster had accepted his offering. 

—

He’d told Alana he was making space in his memory palace for all his friends. The truth was that he had dedicated rooms for all, but one. Hannibal existed in all the rooms, as a memory or a projection, watching over his shoulder and adding to Will’s thoughts always. He was a ghost in a house that welcomed him. A whisper in the wind, in the creak of the flooring, in the glare of the lights. 

‘A mutually unspoken pact to ignore the worst in one another, in order to continue enjoying the best.’ 

That’s what he’d told her, sitting in Hannibal’s kitchen, alive and breathing to her eyes. It was a lie. He’d never been blind to Hannibal’s worst, and Hannibal had never been blind to his. Will had only thought that his worst couldn’t extend to Abigail again. She’d already been hit by both of their worst after all. She was safe. As safe as the dead can be. Safe from further suffering. 

Their worst and their best was blurred. Will couldn’t find one without the other anymore. He quite doubted he’d ever found the best in Hannibal without being conscious of his worst, even partially. 

—

The next time Will was near Hannibal was in a museum. He was sore, his fall from the train and the long walk there having drained him. He hadn’t slept. Everything had a dreamy quality. He sat on the bench besides his killer and savored the sweet taste of the air between them. They shared a smile. Nothing felt real. 

“If I saw you everyday, forever, Will, I would remember this time.”

He would remember this time also. A quiet interlude, a moment of peace, miraculously present outside of his wildest dreams. 

“Strange seeing you here in front of me. I’ve been staring at afterimages of you, in places you haven’t been in years.” There were new additions to his memory palace. Memories that weren’t his, places he’d only scratched the surface that felt like a long ago home. Pain and suffering he’d never felt in this body. He heard Hannibal breathe beside him. That body had felt the pain he’d discovered. And new pain he didn’t know about yet. “I wanted to understand you, before I laid eyes on you again. I needed it to be clear, what I was seeing.”

“Where does the difference between the past and the future come from ?” Hannibal asked. 

“Mine ?” Will answered. “Before you and after you.” That wasn’t the whole truth, but it was as clear as he could make his mind these days. Hannibal had walked in on his earliest memories. He carried the other man’s life next to his own. He could remember a time when it wasn’t so. But that time was far, lonely and bleak. Hannibal’s presence wasn’t ever really an intrusion. He’d slotted himself besides and Will hadn’t wanted or even tried to dislodge him. The distance he’d felt with the word in the Before, that had disappeared in the After.

“Yours ?” He followed. “It’s all started to blur. Mischa ? Abigail ? Chiyoh ?” He didn’t include himself. He wasn’t truly dead yet. “You and I have begun to blur,” he continued. He had felt Hannibal’s losses, and his own, and the mirrors of his mind reflected them over and over again.

“Isn’t that how you found me?” 

“Every crime of yours feels like one I’m guilty of.” He was guilty of them the way he was guilty of knowing Hannibal. He had knowledge of the methods, the emotions, the scar they left on the world. “Not just Abigail’s lurder, every murder. Stretching forward and backwards in time.” He was guilty of Hannibal. 

“Freeing yourself from me, and me freeing myself from you, they’re the same.” They would both tear and be witness to the tear. 

“We’re conjoined.” Will breathed.“I’m curious whether either of us can survive separation.” At this point where the limits between them had all but dissolved. 

“Now is the hardest test. Not letting rage and frustration, nor forgiveness, keep you from thinking.” Hannibal rose, ready to leave this suspended moment. “Shall we ?”

Will breathed in, soaking up the remnants of the scene, taking form in his mind as a finite event. “After you.” 

—

They exited the museum together, for once the picture of Will’s perception in line with reality. Will had promised his death at Hannibal’s hands. But he couldn’t truly die if a part of him existed in Hannibal, like a part of Hannibal existed in him. He would stay alive, but reduced again, this time to another body than his own, in a familiar mind but only as a ghost. Haunting the same places over and over again. Ultimately, he would die with Hannibal. But it would be a long torturous death. He’d promised his death, not his pain. 

Will would have to excise this part of him from Hannibal. He needed to reclaim what he’d unwittingly given away.

He was shot before his knife could begin the surgery.

—

In the haze of pain, he understood that the pain he’d dealt to Chiyoh had just been repaid. He’d forced her hand the way Hannibal hadn’t, hadn’t because he’d left her in incessant pain of her dilemma. He’d brought an end to her captivity by reopening the wound. She had opened his wound in return. 

Pain dealt from another hand both offended and gratified. Hannibal would soothe this hurt, because he hadn't been the one to impose it on Will. He would even be tender, in the way he had been when dealing his own share of pain. Touch, soothing and electric. Words of challenge and betrayal. Time blurred again for Will, and he was both in a villa in Italy and a kitchen in Baltimore. 

He hadn’t seen the doctor side of Hannibal for a long time, but he was here now, both him and the monster, in the same place. The drugs would take effect soon. 

—

’What’s for dinner ?’ ‘Never ask, spoils the surprise.’ 

A shadow of the man in his mind, blurring in and out of consciousness. The smell of food was what anchored him to the waking world. Hannibal was talking about Italy, of sharing Florence with Will. The soup was terrible, and he knew that only meant more pain, this time at Hannibal’s hands. He hadn’t been quick enough with his excision. He would suffer and die, soon, maybe even now, and his ghost would live on, far from Italy.

The third plate at the table. He wouldn’t be the only one to suffer tonight. 

He saw Jack entering. Jack had suffered already at Hannibal’s hands. Maybe he could help excise Will before it was too late. He warned him of the lurking beast. Like he’d warned Hannibal once. He was lost between the then and now, the pain and the memory of pain. Hannibal would be the one who excised himself out of Will after all. 

—

Muskrat Farm was distasteful. The place, its innocupants, the remnants of old victories changed into resentment. And the desperate vengeance Mason had cooked up. He had interrupted Hannibal’s try at separation. He wanted to take Will, parts of Will, and use him to consume Hannibal. Blurring the lines between them and not allowing for separation ever. Living as a ghost in Hannibal’s mind would be painful, but being taken apart and repurposed for Mason was a heresy. As always, Mason wanted to take what wasn’t his. Will had promised his death. And Mason was unworthy.

“Cordell’s going to keep you alive for a very long time…” 

This Cordell, the weapon for Mason’s masterpiece. He was also unworthy. An outsider in this play, pièce rapportée. Will wouldn’t allow him to prepare him for this farce. Biting a chunk out of his cheek, as he would have cut his face off, a preventative measure. Let the man stew in his anger, he would be easier to pick out. Neither he nor Mason had any claim to Will’s end. Hannibal would protect what was his. Will was quite sure of the conclusion of this. He just had to wait. Hannibal would not let him be taken by the unworthy. 

They left him alone after this. Juts a living vessel for a face. He wasn’t the main target of vengeance. 

Then Alana walked in.

“What are you doing here ?” 

She wasn’t supposed to be there. Will knew of the promise Hannibal had made her. She was as dead as he was, both only alive because Hannibal hadn’t had the opportunity to kill them. But the promise between Hannibal and Alana was opposite of his. It was a threat, not a gift. They both would die at his hands, but where one would find liberation, the other would only stumble upon damnation. 

“I’m Mason Verger’s psychiatrist.”

“Is this part of his therapy or yours ?” 

“We’re all working through some issues.” She bit back. “I’m putting an emphasis on self-preservation.”

She was there for revenge. Instead of taking the fall at Hannibal’s hands when he would catch her, she wanted to trap and kill him. She wanted to find her own liberation. But one cannot go back on a deal with the Devil. 

“You helped Mason Verger find us ?” Will asked. 

“I helped Mason find Hannibal.” Alana answered. 

Same difference. She knew better than that. She had seen them begin to blur and she had heard him fall down the abyss. She had likened his friendship with Hannibal as a blackmail elevated to the level of love. She knew.

“We followed Bâtard-Montrachet when we should just have followed you.” She admitted it. 

Using her own intimate knowledge of the man, tracking him with the means of a man who hated him as she did. Will had to admire her methods, even if he couldn’t approve. 

“Almost as ugly as what Mason wants to do to us, is the fact that he can do it with the tacit agreement of people sworn to uphold the law.” 

Alana was supposed to be better than this. Firmly on the side of the law. She had never wavered before. He’d thought he could count on her to stay that way. He supposed he should have seen the change come. Wherever Hannibal happened, change followed. 

“I was trying to get to Hannibal before you.” She explained. “I knew you couldn’t stop yourself, so I had to try.”

“By facilitating torture and death.” 

Will didn’t think Alana would go to these lengths. Certainly not with him. She apparently still thought him deserving of her protection, however misplaced. 

“ I can abide the thought of Hannibal tortured, not necessarily to death.” She was avoiding part of the issue, focused on her revenge. “I’d say he has it coming, wouldn’t you ? Or maybe you wouldn’t.”

Maybe she had run out of protectiveness towards him, after all. 

“What did you think would happen ?” He asked. 

“I thought Jack Crawford and the FBI would come to the rescue. But the finer details of what I thought would happen have evolved.” 

She wanted Hannibal to suffer and then be contained, safe in a box so she could continue her life, breaking her involuntary promise to him. But she couldn’t trust the FBI to be able to save her. Caught between a rock and a hard place. Surrounded on all sides by killers, pain and danger. She couldn’t get her swift vengeance without staining her hands. 

“Then you have to evolve Alana. You have to spill blood. Either by your own hand or someone else’s. 

—

Will was bound, unable to move as Mason was unable to move. He couldn’t do much more than wait for the inevitable chaos that would erupt, either from his own death or others’. He tuned out Mason and Cordell, settling into the feeling of watchful patience. He was quite curious what would happen. 

“This will immobilise your body, but you’ll feel everything.” Cordell approached. “I’m going to cut off your face without anaesthesia, Mister Graham.”

Will shut his eyes. 

—

The chaos came, and its name was Hannibal Lecter. Will knew he had been taken by Hannibal, carried off into the cold night. He could hear his breath, feel his hands, the biting cold of the winter air around them. His eyes were still shut. The sound of other people’s footsteps in the snow were halted by gunshot. They disappeared into the night. 

—

Will came to in the low light of early morning. Hannibal had brought him home. He was safe. 

“Should we talk about teacups and time, and the rules of disorder ?” Hannibal asked. 

He looked tired, and vulnerable in a sense. He was gazing at Will calmly, just back from the outside, his cheeks roughened red from the wind and cold. The house was empty save for them, the dogs having been taken care of, probably by Alana. There was no sound apart from the wind in the trees outside, and the ticking of the clock on the nightstand. Will could see Hannibal’s hope in his eyes, alongside the satisfaction of a hunter having caught a prey. 

There came a choice. Will could try for separation, even after both their previous attempts had ended in failure and pain. Or he could… not. 

‘The teacup’s broken, it’s never gonna gather itself back together again’. The words were right there, ready to go, to reject Hannibal’s overtures. But Will was tired. He hadn’t known what to do after Hannibal had left him in his kitchen, with his own death and that of Abigail. He had finally opened up to his own dark desires. He supposed he could try to go back to his life Before Hannibal, but would it seem anything other than bleak and desolate ? 

“Even if the teacup comes back together, it will always carry the mark of having been broken.” A tentative opening on his side this time. 

“Kintsugi, what was once marred by breaks would now be beautified by the golden joint that fixed it back up.”

Finding beauty in the new, resting upon history. Will had to take a breath. Could he let himself go along with what Hannibal wanted to make of their lives ? He’d managed to find deeper understanding of the man by visiting his roots in Europe. He knew him and, as he’d told Chiyoh, he’d never known himself as well as he knew himself when he was with him. Going with him would mean abandoning everything behind. His work, his few friends, his home… his dogs. But it would also mean discovering himself as he’d never let himself do before. And discovering Hannibal similarly. 

“I’ve added quite a few rooms to my mind palace, nothing as grandiose as yours, but some of your rooms are now shared.” Will informed Hannibal. 

“You must have seen yourself there too, victorious.” 

“When it comes to you and me, there can be no decisive victory.” 

“We are a zero sum game ?” 

“Either we both win, or we both lose.” A last moment of hesitation. "I rather think I’m done losing. I’ve stood in the way of my own wins for too long.” 

Hannibal gasped. His eyes glistened with emotion. His hand tentatively inched towards Will’s on the bedspread. Will crossed the last of the distance. He slid his fingers between Hannibal’s, grasping firmly. After a moment of regarding each other in silence, Hannibal’s thumb began to caress the back of Will’s hand. Will sighed and shut his eyes.

“I miss my dogs.” He heard a chuckle. Then he said, softly, “I missed you. I had to find you, to look for you, even in places you haven’t been. I needed to know where you were, you were in my every thought. Haunting my memories of the life before you.”

“What a privilege, to witness the magnificence of your mind always. I find myself envious of the version of me that has such a position.” Hannibal smiled. “A similar ghost of you exists in the recesses of my own mind, of course.” 

Rays of sunlight pierced through the window. They stayed in Wolf Trap for a few more hours, before setting off for their new life, sharing everything, knowing each other as they knew themselves. 

—

“You finally caught the Chesapeake Ripper, Will.” Hannibal laughed, comfortable, in bed at the end of a long day.

“I didn’t catch you,” Will chuckled, “You surrendered.”

“I’ll always be there for you to find me.” One final promise. 

Will knew nothing of the future, but he knew his end. He was laying right next to him, in bed on a Sunday evening. The end would come, and its name would be Hannibal Lecter. Will would give in to him, as he already had time and time again. He came alive as he met Hannibal and he would die as his final rendez-vous with him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't hesitate to leave comments to tell me what you thought !


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